Margaret Draper

Margaret Draper
Margaret Draper The Brighter Day 1950
Born	Margaret Ruth Draper (1916-11-20)November 20, 1916 Spanish Fork, Utah, U.S.
Died	October 14, 2011(2011-10-14) (aged 94) Payson, Utah, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1934–1985

Margaret Ruth Draper (November 20, 1916 – October 14, 2011) was an American actress and international service worker.

Draper was born in 1916, the third of six children born to Delbert Morley Draper and Frances Mary Rogers. Shortly after her birth her family relocated to Salt Lake City where she lived until 1934.

She performed in her first play when she was four, when the University of Utah drama department came to Stewart School to find two children – Draper and her brother Courtney - to appear in The Hour Glass. Draper attended East High School in Salt Lake City, where she pursued her chosen passion in dramatic, dancing and musical productions. Due to shortened school years and the Great Depression, She entered the University of Utah at age 15. However, due to poor grades, she was sent by her parents to business college for a year, where she learned skills that helped her earn a living when she was later to arrive in New York. She was readmitted to the University the following year, and majored in dramatics, graduating with a respectable average. A 1940 newspaper article noted that she "is pleasantly remembered for her performances in Theta Alpha Phi productions" at the university.

The summer she graduated from university, she was invited to accompany a friend and his sister to New York City in their Ford coupe; despite her older sister’s impending wedding, she accepted without hesitation, realizing this would be her only chance to pursue a career in the theatre. She departed the following day with a single bag and $38.50 in her purse. Alone in New York, she found a small room in Tudor City, and realized that she soon must find employment, which she secured in G. Schirmer's music store.

By dint of perseverance and incessant self-promotion, Draper landed her first job with the Provincetown Theater in return for translating a French play.

In the late 1930s through 1940, Draper was active in the theater in the Eastern United States for four seasons. She worked with the Wharf School of the Theater, Provincetown, Massachusetts; Green Lake Players, Buffalo, New York; Cherry Lane Theatre, New York City, New York; and Chekhov Theater Studio, Ridgefield, Connecticut.

During World War II, she worked for two years for the Red Cross in Europe and the Middle East as a recreational director, and returned to lean years in New York until 1947, when she got her first radio role with Carl Beier in the CBS program, Joe Powers of Oakville. (Another source says: "In 1947, she joined with the Barter Theatre and for a year toured with that company throughout the southwest. In March of 1948, she returned to New York and radio ....")